Peter T. C. Chang

Opinion | Press freedom: China may have too little but America has far too much

Authoritarian China has to loosen its grip to allow for a freer press. In the US, however, unchecked freedom has led to a crisis of authority and undermined the fourth estate’s capacity for fair and balanced reporting

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Peter T. C. Chang

Published: 1:30am, 22 Oct 2021Updated: 5:43am, 22 Oct 2021

LinkedIn’s retreat from China once again underscores the challenging environment that US social media faces in the country. If China is too restrictive, the United States faces the inverse problem of an environment so free that it is complicating the US media’s ability to maintain fair and balanced reporting.

This month, a Facebook whistle-blower’s testimony to US lawmakers leaves the social media giant once again facing a congressional threat to break it up. At the heart of Facebook’s long-standing saga is the question of authority.

Disdainful of state power, Americans are adamant about keeping the government out of their lives. In the tech industry, for example, corporate giants such as Facebook and Google operate freely, barely impeded by regulation. Guided by the conviction that free speech is the best antidote to hate speech, these social media platforms have enforced little censorship.

But America’s unbridled faith in freedom has unintended consequences: US social media is now awash with misinformation and conspiracy theories.

One peculiar episode from this disarray is how Donald Trump, at the time the country’s most powerful elected public official, was accused of falsehood and censored by Twitter, an unelected private entity. It underscored the crisis of authority afflicting America; that is, who is the final arbiter of right and wrong?

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Tightened regulations among key trends shaping China’s internet in 2021

In China, where the country is conceived as the family writ large, the masses are accustomed to the paternalistic state’s imprint on everyday life, including freedom of speech. The recent crackdown on Chinese tech titans, for instance, is clearly Beijing’s attempt to prevent any American-style “unruly freedom” from taking root.